


Aftermath

by zoicite



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:01:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoicite/pseuds/zoicite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John awoke face down in a swimming pool.  His ears were ringing and he blinked down into the murky water, stunned and disoriented for just a moment before he gasped and sucked water into his lungs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

John awoke face down in a swimming pool. His ears were ringing and he blinked down into the murky water, stunned and disoriented for just a moment before he gasped and sucked water into his lungs.

Everything was action after that, his arms and legs flailing as he pushed himself up until his face broke the surface of the pool. John coughed and spit water from his mouth, stared at the ceiling as he took huge gasping breaths, the water lapping around his ears. He tried to clear the burning in his nose only to have the feeling replaced with the burn of smoke in the air and he turned his head, took in the scene. The far end of the pool room was in shambles, part of the upper level fallen to the floor below, flames and debris. Dust floated on the pool around him making the water look grey with it. Other than the crackle of the few remaining flames, the calming splash of the water as he tread, the building was quiet.

“Sherlock,” John called out, treading water as he began to scan for him.

He felt something knock against his back and he turned fast to find Sherlock’s arm, Sherlock floating there on his stomach, hair billowing around in the water and dust.

“Sherlock,” John said again. He pushed at Sherlock, turning him in the water until Sherlock was on his back, his face no longer submerged. John kicked to keep afloat, reached for Sherlock’s face, turned it toward him, saw no response.

“Damn it,” John cursed and began hauling Sherlock to the side of the pool. “Damn it, Sherlock.”

He pushed Sherlock’s arms up and over the side of the pool, wrapped his arms around him and shoved him up as far as he could. Satisfied that Sherlock wouldn’t fall back in as soon as John let go, John pulled himself up onto the edge. Sherlock’s face had been scraped a little by the rubble on the tiles, a tiny smear of blood beneath his cheek. John ignored it. A scratch didn’t matter when Sherlock wasn’t breathing. He grabbed onto Sherlock’s arms and pulled until his long body was free of the pool.

It was then that John finally felt instinct kick in. Once he had Sherlock on his back there was no more time to hesitate. He’d hesitated too long as it was. His hands were on Sherlock’s chest before he had time to think about it and he counted aloud with each compress, the repetition keeping him calm, keeping him sane.

He wasn’t sure how long it took. It felt like hours that he sat there pushing at Sherlock’s chest, breathing life back into his lungs. It was probably thirty seconds, a minute. One more round, he told himself, tilting Sherlock’s head back to cover Sherlock’s mouth with his own. One more round and he would have to give up.

Finally, _finally_ , Sherlock jerked beneath John, and John pulled back just as Sherlock coughed and sputtered and water ran from his mouth onto the tiles. Sherlock stayed hunched there, coughing, his forehead pressed to his forearm, his nose touching the floor. He took a moment to recover, tried to sit up, then decided better of it, focused on John and said, “Why are you doing that?”

John blinked at him, laughed. “Why am I doing that?” John asked, incredulous. He laughed again and it sounded hysterical and a little nutty to his own ear. He fell from his knees to sit on the tiles beside Sherlock. “Why am I doing that?”

Sherlock was looking at him like he was off his rocker, the laugh must have sounded crazed to Sherlock’s ear too, and John was about to explain when Sherlock turned his head to look down the length of the pool and said simply, “Oh. Right.”

John nodded, looked down and noticed the blood staining the puddle beneath Sherlock’s wet clothes.

“You’re bleeding,” John said. He remembered the smear of blood beneath Sherlock’s cheek, looked there now, but it was a small scratch, nothing like -

“Yes,” Sherlock said, interrupted John’s train of thought. “Yes, I was shot.”

“What? You were – “ John started, and then he was springing back into action, pushing aside Sherlock’s coat, checking his sides, his chest.

“My arm,” Sherlock said and nodded toward his right shoulder. “It’s fine, the bullet just grazed me. They weren’t shooting to kill, just disarm. It didn’t work.”

“Obviously,” John grunted as he pushed Sherlock’s jacket from his shoulders. Sherlock hissed but didn’t try to stop John. John remembered now. He remembered hearing the gunshot as he ran for the pool. He’d thought in the moment that it was Sherlock who’d fired, remembered now that a second shot rang out seconds after the first.

Sherlock’s shirt was wet, the arm of the white fabric stained various shades of pink, brown, red from the blood. John found the tear and ripped it wider to get a better look at the wound.

Sherlock was right, the bullet had only grazed him. Still, John removed his jumper, wrapped it tight around Sherlock’s arm. It looked bulky and ridiculous and honestly it probably wasn’t doing much of anything. It was far from John’s best work. Sherlock didn’t comment on it though, instead he began to push at the floor with his unwounded arm, turn as he pushed himself to his knees.

“I don’t think you should stand,” John said.

“Doctor’s orders?” Sherlock asked, but ignored John and stood anyway, clutched at his wounded arm and nearly stumbled so that John felt compelled to reach out and steady him. Sherlock didn’t shake him off.

Together, Sherlock leaning heavily on John, they walked toward the rubble at the far end of the pool. John could tell, even from this distance, that Moriarty wasn’t there. Closer now he noticed the strip of tile cleared of rubble, the red streaks along the floor.

“He was dragged,” John concluded.

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, his voice loud right beside John’s ear.

“By one of the snipers?”

“Most likely. Size 9 shoe.” John saw the footprint in the dust as soon as Sherlock voiced the observation.

“But he’s dead,” John said, taking in the blood. “He’s dead, surely?”

“We’re not dead,” Sherlock pointed out.

“He was closer – “ John reasoned.

“No,” Sherlock said. “He’s not dead.”

“No,” John repeated. “How – “

“Look at that pattern there,” Sherlock interrupted. He released John to point with his good arm to a series of thin lines through the layer of dust left from the explosion. “His fingers trailed across the floor as he was dragged, but look here.” John looked, saw that where the trail started as three long lines, it quickly changed, becoming two lines and one series of short dashes.

“He was tapping his finger as they dragged him away?” John guessed.

“He was tapping his finger as they dragged him away,” Sherlock confirmed.

“Tapping his fingers,” John said again, horrified that Moriarty could be well enough to display impatience at a time like that.

“Wounded,” Sherlock continued. “His thigh got the worst of it judging by the location and smear pattern of the blood. Definitely wounded, but not dead.”

“Not dead,” John sighed.

“This bomb was weaker than the rest,” Sherlock said. “It had to be. Moriarty was too close. It was meant for you, maybe me. It was mostly meant as an idle threat either way. It wasn’t meant to hit someone taunting from the other end of a swimming pool. It wasn’t strapped to Moriarty. Surviving it isn’t that impressive.”

John took in the gap missing from the second level of the building, thought of Sherlock lying there in the pool, and felt a little impressed anyway. He huffed and then listened to the sound of sirens approaching in the distance.

“Big enough that someone reported it,” John noted.

“I hope it’s Lestrade,” Sherlock sighed, clearly not up to dealing with anyone else.

It wasn’t Lestrade, it was Dimmick, and Dimmick seemed less than thrilled to find John and Sherlock on the scene. Dimmick hadn’t been briefed on this case, just happened to be closer. Lestrade was on his way but in the meantime John paced and kicked bits of concrete into the pool while Sherlock slowly explained what happened a second time from his spot on the floor. The shock must be wearing off because Sherlock was holding John’s jumper to his arm as though he’d just realized a gunshot wound could be painful. He was also carefully articulating all of his words as though he was speaking to a small child.

Dimmick was becoming enraged and finally John cut in and said, “I’m sorry, Sherlock’s been shot. Is the ambulance on its way?”

“I don’t need an ambulance,” Sherlock said immediately.

“You were clinically dead,” John pointed out. Dimmick looked up at that and John realized that neither of them had remembered to mention that bit.

“We were in the pool,” John said by way of explanation. As though that was any sort of explanation at all.

Sherlock was giving him that look again and Dimmick sighed, wrote something on the notepad he was holding, and walked away.

“Stop pacing,” Sherlock ordered and John threw up his hands, leaned against the wall and sank to the floor beside Sherlock.

John’s mouth still tasted of chlorine. They sat there silent for a time, staring at the dark water of the pool. Once Sherlock opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to change his mind, shut it again and turned away. John didn’t press. Eventually Dimmick returned to say, “The ambulance is here.”

It wasn’t long after that that they were ushered out of the building amidst Sherlock’s protests.

“I was hardly shot,” he was saying as John followed him into the ambulance. He watched as the jumper was removed from Sherlock’s arm, as the shirt sleeve was ripped away and the wound was properly bandaged. Someone set a blanket on John’s shoulders and pushed him down onto the stretcher opposite Sherlock.

John was exhausted suddenly, could curl up on this stretcher and fall asleep if he was only given the chance. It might be his only chance. As soon as Sherlock was properly mended and released he would share with John what he’d been working out as they sat there by the pool. Sherlock wouldn’t be able to let Moriarty go. John wasn’t going to be getting much sleep for a while.

Moriarty. Still alive. Sherlock had nearly died tonight. _He’d_ nearly died.

“John,” Sherlock said.

“What?” John asked, not really listening. Sherlock had nearly died tonight and Moriarty had tapped his bloody finger as he was dragged away.

“John,” Sherlock said again.

“What?” John snapped, back in the present.

They were alone in the ambulance. His clothes were wet, he was cold, and he grabbed the edges of the blanket and wrapped it tighter around himself. Sherlock had a blanket draped over his shoulders as well. He was ignoring his.

“I said, none of this answers the real question,” Sherlock said. He was doing it again, the careful articulation that he’d used with Dimmick.

John honestly didn’t know that any of the evening’s events answered any questions at all, but he decided to play along.

“No?” he asked, his voice weary. “What’s the real question?”

“Why a military doctor who has surely revived a number of patients wouldn’t know that rescue breaths are an outdated procedure.”

John sighed heavily through his nose, shook his head, looked at the floor. As much as he enjoyed the rare moments when he was able to correct Sherlock, he didn’t think it was necessary to explain that there had been no time to think about changes in protocol, that furthermore, changes in protocol didn't _technically_ go into effect until the new year. _Further_ furthermore, John knew what he was doing and it had _worked_.

“I’m just glad no one was around to see you kissing me in a darkened pool. People might talk.”

John looked back up at that. Sherlock was regarding him from his seat on the stretcher. He wasn’t smiling outright, but John could see it in his eyes, could see the glint there, the hint of mockery.

“Is this your way of saying thank you?” John asked.

Sherlock looked down at his own knees, then at an instructional poster pinned to the wall of the ambulance.

“Yes,” he said. He directed the words to the poster, but John caught Sherlock watching him from the corner of his eye as he added, “Thank you.”

John leaned back on the stretcher. It was nothing Sherlock wouldn’t have done for him.

“It was nothing,” he said and closed his eyes.


End file.
